


Three Dances John Taught Sherlock

by CharlotteK



Series: Three Dances John Taught Sherlock [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BBC Sherlock - Freeform, Crack, Humor, M/M, Salsa dancing ;), The Chicken Dance, The Macarena, The Time Warp, Three dances John taught Sherlock, crack!fic, johnlock if you squint, lots of crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-20
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-12 13:39:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/491658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlotteK/pseuds/CharlotteK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three dances John taught Sherlock, and One dance Sherlock taught John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hey, Macarena!

**Author's Note:**

> At two o'clock the other morning, I got the brilliant idea of writing this fic. I dunno, I found the idea hilarious at the time, so here we go!

Today, John is about to teach Sherlock the Macarena.

He shouldn't have been surprised, really, when Sherlock said that yes, he did know what the dance was, but no, he didn't know how to do it. Because ( _really_ , John) why on Earth would _the_ Sherlock Holmes, the world's first and only consulting detective and natural genius have any reason to clog his Mind Palace with such nonsense as the Macarena? Either way, they have a wedding dance to go to in about a week, and whether Sherlock likes it or not, he's going to learn how to dance. 

"Okay, you stand right here beside me, and just do what I do," John says, knowing that his patience, as well as Sherlock's attention span, probably won't last long. He puts his arms out in front of him one at a time, and turns them over, again, one at a time. He looks over at Sherlock. Sherlock is staring at John with his nose scrunched up and his eyebrows furrowed. 

"You know, I can tell which is your dominant hand, just from that thing you did with your arms," he says. "You put your left arm out first, and you turned it over first. It really is quite-"

"Sherlock, we made a deal. Just do what I just did." Sherlock rolls his eyes, and imitates John. It's true, teaching Sherlock to dance is part of the deal the two made the other day, when John found a more disgusting than usual specimen in the refrigerator from an experiment that Sherlock never did get around to. After the smell nearly devoured the whole flat, Sherlock did get rid of it, but John was the one who ended up wandering around the flat with a can of Febreeze, and then washing the walls and floor until either the smell was gone or the nerves in his nose were shot. Sherlock had made him clean out the flat, so John decided to teach this lanky bugger how to dance.

"Alright," John says. "Now, you're going to take your right arm, and cross it over your chest so that your hand is resting on your left shoulder. Like this." He gives Sherlock a sideways glance. Sherlock copies John's movement, and then crosses his left arm over his chest.

"It was quite obvious what the next move was going to be," he says with a shrug when John sighs at him. "Okay, now I feel like a mummy with my arms across my chest like this. Now what?"

John puts his right hand to the side of his head, and then his left hand to the other side. Sherlock follows. John crosses his right arm over his stomach and rests his hand on his side, and Sherlock does the same. Sherlock gets ahead of John again, but this time, John ignores him. 

"Now, you're going to put your hands on your hips," John instructs Sherlock. "Simple enough. Okay, shake your hips a little..." Sherlock snorts. 

"Shake my hips?"

"Yeah. Well, swivel them a little. Kind of like this." John swivels his hips in a circular motion, and Sherlock shakes his head.

"I'm not doing that, John."

"Why not?"

"You said you were going to teach me how to dance. Not how to shake my booty." Sherlock spits out the last three words, as if they were sour in his mouth. They look at each other for a silent moment, and John cracks up. Sherlock gives in and soon, they are both nearly doubled over in laughter. John laughs until his face starts to hurt. 

"Okay, whether you shake your booty or not, Sherlock," John says when they're finally calmed down enough to continue the lesson,  "you're supposed to go, 'Heeeey, Macarena!' and then once you say that, you turn ninety degrees and clap once. Can you handle that?" 

"Of course I can handle it," Sherlock replies. 

"Alright, then let's take it from the top."

Sherlock's miles of arms and legs tend to be funny in a normal situation, but now that he's doing the Macarena, John nearly finds it hysterical. WIth each move, Sherlock sort of bows his legs, making it look like he's on a pair of springs instead. 

"Hey, Macarena!" John says once they reach the twelfth move. Sherlock stays quiet. John turns around to look at him.

"You didn't say it," he says.

"I know." John crosses his arms. Sherlock sighs. "Fine. Fine. " He puts his hands on his hips, rocks them a little from side to side, and then bellows, "HEY, MACARENA!" He jumps a quarter of a turn, lands loudly, and claps his hands lazily over his head, glaring at John. John smiles. 

"Well done," he muses. "Think your brilliant Mind Palace can hold onto this little dance for the rest of the week? It's not that hard; you remembered the moves right away."

Sherlock mutters incoherently, and heads for his bedroom. John takes that as a maybe. He grins to himself. What is he going to teach Sherlock next?


	2. I Don't Wanna Be a Chicken

John Watson has never been more embarrassed in his life.

It's one thing trying to teach The Chicken Dance to a grown man. It's quite another when said grown man's brother walks in on the dance lesson. And now here they stand, in the middle of the flat; Sherlock, John, and Mycroft, glancing at one another uneasily, Sherlock with his arms tucked in mid-flap. His arms drop to his sides, and he glares at his brother.

"What are you doing here, Mycroft?" Mycroft smirks.

"I think I should be the one asking you that," he replies. John's face is burning, and he looks down at the floor to avoid Mycroft's face.

"John was in the middle of teaching me something," Sherlock says tersely. Mycroft snorts.

"The Chicken Dance."

"Seriously, Mycroft, what do you want?" John looks back up to see Sherlock and his brother face-to-face. Is that smoke coming out from Sherlock's ears? Mycroft leans on his closed umbrella, and shrugs casually.

"Just wanted to check up on Brother Dearest," he says with a sneer. "But I see you two have proved that no, you simply cannot act like grown-ups." John and Sherlock glance at each other, and it's almost as if they know one another's thoughts.

_Sherlock, get him out of here._

_I'm trying._

"If that's all you came for," Sherlock says, "then John and I are doing fine. We're just fine. Why don't you go visit  _Lestrade_ , or somebody?" Mycroft's ears turn a light shade of pink, and the thin hairs on top of his head raise up a little. The corner of Sherlock's lip curls up in a self-satisfied smirk. Mycroft rolls his eyes, and turns on his heel for the door.

"Fine, Sherlock," he says. "Maybe I'd best visit somebody who can actually act their age." At that, the door closes behind him, and soon after, John hears the sound of a vehicle pulling away from Baker Street. Sherlock looks over at him with a half smile, a twinkle of pride in his eye.

"Thank you," John says. He clears his throat. "So, um, would you want to keep going with this? Or is that enough dancing for the-"

"No, it's fine," Sherlock says. "Where were we? Flapping our wings or something?"

"Something like that," John replies. "How about we start over?" He takes his place in front of Sherlock, and starts to open and close his hands. "I don't want to be a chicken," he sings quietly to himself. He and Sherlock fold their arms and start to flap. "I don't want to be a duck..."

"What are you singing?" Sherlock inquires.

"What? Oh! Um, those are the lyrics, Sherlock."

"The dance has lyrics?" Sherlock snorts. "Interesting. What comes next?"

"Um, well..." John can feel his face warming up all over again. He wants to laugh. The look of curiosity, utter,  _genuine_  curiosity in Sherlock's expectant face causes him to smile. "Now, we do this with our arms, we bend our knees... and we shake our bums." Sherlock screws up his face.

"But I don't want to  _shake my bum_!" he scoffs.

"It's part of the dance. You have to." Slowly, Sherlock bends his knees, and twists his torso. John shrugs. "Close enough." Sherlock looks relieved. "Okay. So we opened and closed our hands, flapped our 'wings', shook our... bums, and now, we clap four times and do the first three moves over again. Think you can handle that?"

"Of course, John. This is much more simple than the Macarena."

They do the dance again, John humming the tune as they practice each move.

"Now, for this part, all you have to do is spread out your arms and walk about in a circle. That's it." Sherlock handles this pretty well, until his long arms just about knock over the lamp. And the skull from the mantle. "And now, we do the first three moves again, clap four times, and we're done!"

"That was simple," Sherlock says. "And I'll try not to delete it before the dance." John smiles.

Later that night, John steps out of the bathroom from his shower to hear Sherlock playing a familiar tune on his violin, as he sings along quietly.

_"I don't want to be a chicken, I don't want to be a duck..."_


	3. Let's Do The Time Warp Again!

Much to John's surprise, Sherlock has seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show. What's more surprising is the fact that Sherlock had seen it, and didn't delete it from his Mind Palace. 

John is settled into his armchair, pecking contentedly away at the keys of his laptop, working on the opening for his newest blog entry. Sherlock pads quietly into the living room, and it takes a few moments before John starts to feel the daggers being stared into his back. Slowly, he turns around, and he nearly jumps at the sight of Sherlock vulturing over him with an owly expression etched into his face.

"What...?" John asks. Sherlock crinkles his nose.

"It took you two minutes to write four sentences, what with all that backspacing and rewording. Just let me type!"

"That's not why you're hanging around me, is it," John replies, crossing his arms. Sherlock shakes his head.

"The wedding dance is tomorrow night, is it not?"

"Yes..."

"I want to pose an experiment. You still have time to teach me to dance, and there is one that I hear is done at some weddings." He clears his throat, and his cheeks take on a light pink tone. "If you know it, would you teach me the Time Warp?" John pushes back a laugh.

"The Time Warp?" he asks. "From The Rocky Horror Picture Show?" Sherlock nods. John nods back slowly. He saves his blog entry, closes his laptop, and gets up from is chair. Sherlock takes him by the arm.

"So you will teach me?" John thinks for a moment before answering. If he doesn't teach Sherlock the dance, Sherlock will just keep bothering him for the rest of the day. And it's not even noon yet, so that will just make things worse. And another thing: does he even remember the dance? He sighs.

"Alright, sure. Just let me watch the movie again, and then I'll try my best." Sherlock's eyes light up, and he grins like an excited five-year-old.

It's been a very long time since John last watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He's skipped through a lot of the movie and now he's just sitting on his bed with the laptop, playing the Time Warp scene over and over again in one window, with printed instructions on how to do the dance open in another.

"Jump to the left," John reads aloud. He shuts the laptop after listening to the same part of the movie for the fifth time over, and stands up. He's going to have to try this one himself if he wants to know it for Sherlock. He shakes out his leg, and jumps to his left.  "Okay, got that part..." Time for the next step: "Stomp your right foot out to the side, and back four times." John tries to stomp quietly. "Then a step to the right. Ah, okay, not too hard." He follows the next two steps without a problem, but he starts to crack up at the mental image of Sherlock thrusting and swinging his pelvis like he's going insane.

It takes a while for John to actually finish the dance. He reads over the instructions a few more times, and supposes that maybe he should just take it from the top, just to make sure he gets every move right. He stands in front of his full-length mirror, and begins.

"Jump to the left..." He hums the rest of the song as he stomps his foot, throws his hands up into the air, and brings them back down onto his hips. He nods at his reflection. He's starting to enjoy this! He brings his knees together, winks at himself, and starts thrusting his hips like mad. He throws up a hand, then another, and drops them back onto his hips and shimmys.

"Let's do the Time Warp again!" Sherlock finishes from the doorway. John whips right around, absolutely mortified at Sherlock's presence. Sherlock chuckles.

"Hah...um..." John clears his throat. "How long have you been there for?"

"Oh, I don't know. Since I heard you close your laptop and get up." John's face is burning, much warmer than it was when Mycroft saw him teaching Sherlock the Chicken Dance.

"Uh, right. Okay. So do you want me to teach you now?" Sherlock smirks.

"No, thank you," he says. "I think I've seen enough. It's, um, nice to see that you've still got it, though!"


	4. Salsa!

"You can't be serious!" Sherlock pouts. John sighs, and stands on tip-toe to adjust the taller man's tie. "John, I don't even like wearing ties!"

"We made a deal, Sherlock," he warns. "And you are sticking to it. Your experiment can wait for one night."

"Can it?" Sherlock challenges.

"It can. Now if you would just stand still, I'll have your tie fixed!"

"Why do I have to wear a tie?"

"Because it looks nice. So just stop being a git, and cooperate." Sherlock huffs.

"Fine. I'll go to the wedding dance," he replies. "But I don't have to like it."

* * *

Much to John's surprise (and probably Sherlock's anguish), Greg Lestrade is sitting at a table with a couple of John's old friends when he and Sherlock walk into the dance. Greg stands up to greet John and Sherlock with a warm slap on the shoulder, and invites them to sit down.

"He's drunk already," Sherlock notes quietly to John. "Reddening face, the smell of-"

John shushes him. "Be polite, Sherlock." He and Sherlock each pull out a chair and sit down, John still adjusting to the loud music, and Sherlock looking like he's in for an all-night sulk.

"I'm surprised he showed up!" Greg beams.

"Well, we made a bit of a deal," John says. "And this is Sherlock's end of it!"

Sherlock rolls his eyes. Greg stands up and walks around the table, and crouches down to whisper into John's ear.

"I hope you're thinking what I'm thinking," he says. He looks up at Sherlock, and then back at John with a sinister grin. "I say we get him having fun, with a little help from Captain Morgan!"

John smiles, resisting the urge to rub his hands together like a true evil mastermind. Tonight is going to be fun.

* * *

 

Sherlock Holmes is dancing.

_Dancing!_

John and Greg lean back in their chairs, amused. Greg fishes his phone out of his trousers pocket and begins to film Sherlock from a distance. Sherlock is trying, and utterly failing, at trying to keep up with everybody else, as "Thriller" blares over the speakers. John feels himself breaking into a grin, and soon, he's smiling so hard, he wonders when his face will split in two. He glaces down at the four empty plastic cups around Sherlock's spot at the table, and wonders if maybe he and Greg had given Sherlock a bit too much...

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen!" One of the DJs shouts into his microphone. "We're gonna play a song that  _everybody_  knows! Get on out to the dance floor and let's go!" He gives the other DJ a grin, and John bursts into laughter. The Macarena starts up, and he finds himself standing up and taking Greg by the wrist.

"Let's go watch Sherlock up close," John says. "And maybe dance along with him!" Greg hesitates at first, but then reluctantly nods.

_Dale a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena_

_Que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegria y cosa buena..._

John dance-walks across the floor in search of Sherlock, and finds him right away, the man's long legs bobbing awkwardly in and out of time with the music, his arms waving and flailing as he tries to dance. His long, black curls bounce along with the song, and he shouts out the lyrics, nearly drowned out by Greg's laughter.

"I didn't know you knew the lyrics!" John exclaims. Sherlock looks at him with a crooked smile.

"I don't!" he replies. "That's the beauty of it! You just scream out whatever comes to mind, and everyone thinks you know the words!" John snorts. He can't argue with  _that_  logic.

"Remember how to do the Macarena?" John asks.

"I remember most of it."

"Good!" John looks over at Greg, who is more than likely taking another video. "Let's do this, then!"

After a few seconds, Sherlock starts to imitate John's moves until he is finally in time with the rest of the dancers. John smiles as his favourite part of the dance comes up.

_Dale a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena_

_Que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegria y cosa buena_

_Dale a tu cuerpo alegria, Macarena_

"You've got to shake your hips at this part," John tells Sherlock.

 _Hey, Macarena!_  Sherlock swivels his hips with his hands held over his head, and claps enthusiastically. "John! Did I just  _shake my booty_?" he asks with a wink. John bursts into laughter at Sherlock's question.

"Yes, Sherlock," he says, nodding. "you did. Good job!"

* * *

 

Back at the table, Sherlock downs his fifth drink, and pulls a face when he swallows.

"John," he says, sounding like he's in deep thought. "You've taught me how to dance. But I haven't returned the favour yet."

"No?"

"No, I haven't. John, when the right music comes on, I'm going to teach you something!" he smiles.

"Yeah, okay Sherlock..."

Almost as if the DJs had been listening to the conversation, the music changes from a slow, romantic tune to a fast, bouncy melody. It reminds John of Spanish flamenco music, but he's not quite sure if he can put a finger on just what genre it is. At the start of the song, most of the couples leave the floor and return to their tables, while a few brave pairs remain. Sherlock slams a hand down on the table, jumps up with a start, and grabs John by the hand.

"Perfect!" he says excitedly. He pulls John along behind him, and then pulls him in close, placing one hand on the small of his back and interlocking their fingers with the other. John can feel his face warming up.  _This is going to be a bit not good..._

"Um, Sherlock? What are we doing?" Sherlock chuckles, and brings his face close to John's.

"I'm going to teach you how to Salsaaaah," he replies with a shimmy of his hips. "It's okay, I'll lead!" John's face grows from warm to burning. What is he getting himself into?

Much to his surprise, Sherlock actually knows how to Salsa. He takes a dramatic step forward, while John steps back awkwardly. After a few clumsy moments, John is finally able to keep up with Sherlock, and he even manages to complete a couple of spins without losing his balance and falling over. A few steps here, a trip or two there, and Sherlock spins John again, this time pulling him right up close to his chest. He looks up into Sherlock's face, and the taller man quirks an eyebrow.

"You're doing well, John," he says, his deep voice rumbling. "Very well..." He squeezes John's hand tightly.

"Sherlock, people are watching," John says, looking around uneasily. It's true. The other couples on the floor have since stopped dancing, and are watching the two with amused expressions.

"All the better," Sherlock replies. "The song's almost over, so when I tell you to dip me,  _dip me._ "

"But you're the one leading!"

"Doesn't matter."

"Dip you, though?!"

"Yes, John..." he pauses. "Okay, NOW!"

Instantly, John moves his hand from Sherlock's shoulder to his lower back, and tips him nearly over. Sherlock feels light as paper in John's arms, much to John's relief. Sherlock tips his head back and closes his eyes, his curls bobbing as he does so. He extends a long leg in front of him, and wraps the other one around John.

John has never recieved so much applause in his life before this moment. Sherlock stands back up, and the cheering grows louder. John isn't sure if he should be feeling proud, or if he wants the floor to open up and eat him right now...

"I think that went rather well," Sherlock says into John's ear. "Considering how inexperienced to this kind of dance you are!"

"Uh, heh," is all John can manage. He looks around in the general area of their table. "Um, where's Greg?"

"Yoo-hoo!" John turns around, startled at Greg's presence behind them. He clicks a button on his phone.

 _Oh God_ , John thinks. Greg's taken another video.


End file.
